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The first question is whether his presidency would augur any significant change in policy with a meaningful impact abroad. The answer is probably not. On both domestic and foreign policy, the Democratic candidates’ stances are largely similar. Any Democratic president will try to extricate the United States from the mess in Iraq, yet all would face rigid constraints, and perhaps more important, Obama’s foreign-policy advisers (such as Anthony Lake) and Clinton’s (Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke) and their common friends (Bill Richardson), all spring from the same stem: the Bill Clinton administration....

Bush’s much-touted 1989 Andean Initiative so far has “only marginally impacted on the narcotraffickers.” Peru, a major coca producer, is such a “quagmire of deceit and corruption, attainment of U.S. objectives is impossible.” Though the Medellin cartel’s crippled, the flow of cocaine from Colombian processing centers hasn’t been slowed. “Micro-managing by Congress” and “bureaucratic inertia” have held up anti-drug aid to Latin America. In sum, the report advises against deeper Pentagon involvement in the war: “[avoid] short term, relatively ephemeral, military solutions....

Some opposition politicians are already treating 76-year-old Kim, who must step down in early 2003, as a lame duck. So far, the criticisms (and a plunge in popularity ratings from 83 percent last June to 46 percent in February) haven’t shaken the president’s faith in the correctness of his policies. But even his political allies acknowledge that the sunshine policy is losing steam and, in the words of one, “will be hard to sustain unless North Korea does something drastic....

The Bengals went 16-48 in my first four seasons as a fan. I picked them, voluntarily, with no family or location-based ties, in 1999. I was 11 years old, and 11-year-olds make bad decisions like investing in Akili Smith trading cards and Peter Warrick jerseys. So do the Bengals, of course, which should be no surprise because in those years, the Bengals might as well have been run by an 11-year-old....

You might have heard of it. It raked in $23 billion last year, netting about $9 billion. Around 400 million people use its software. And oh yes, there’s this little problem with an anti-trust suit… All in all, quite a quarter century for Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and his partner for 20 years, CEO Steve Ballmer. (Allen left in 1983 after a bout with Hodgkin’s disease. “I really took a step back to recharge,” he said from London last week, “and after that I felt like I should start exploring things on my own....

Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef, led by Earth Hour founder Andy Ridley, are developing the pilot project for one of the world’s largest collaborative scientific surveys by exploring as much of the Reef as possible and in doing so provide valuable insights for its future management and conservation as it faces the challenge of climate change. The pilot will undertake findings and observations from the Blue Hole, a remote sinkhole surrounded by healthy corals identified by Daydream Island’s marine biologist Johnny Gaskell....

As the investigation into the Twin Towers bombing enters its second week, federal officials say their only certainty is that Mohammed A. Salameh did not act alone. But the breadth of the alleged conspiracy, its motive and possible links to state-sponsored terrorism all remain a muddle. Salameh, charged by the government last Thursday with aiding and abetting the blast that killed five and injured more than 1,000, was a man who authorities say kept dangerous company....

Gramm was born on a military post. His education was funded partly by his father’s GI insurance, and he went to graduate school on a National Defense Fellowship (both of which he later voted to cut). Yet Gramm laps up federal money for Texas. “I’m carrying so much pork,” he once said, “I’m beginning to get trichinosis.” From 1991 to mid-1992, Gramm was one of three lawmakers who didn’t sponsor a bill that cut spending....

Of the nearly 50 series launched since last September, “Davis Rules” currently owns the second highest rating (“America’s Funniest People” owns the highest - but then that’s a spinoff, and a wretchedly homemade one at that). Granted, this sitcom’s premise does not quicken the pulse. Winters plays Gunny Davis, a loopy but lovable grandfather who moves in with his widowed son (Randy Quaid) to help raise his three grandsons. Now for the beauty part....

No one doubts that hCG is critical to sustaining pregnancy. Its main role is to block menstruation and stimulate release of the hormones that prepare the uterus for occupancy. But it may do more than that. To a woman’s immune system, the emergence of an embryo can come as bad news, for its cells contain the father’s alien genes as well as her own. When embryonic cells are covered with hCG, they acquire a strong negative charge....

Educated: Mainly in a Manhattan Beach, Calif., video store Profile: Lantern-jawed wunderkind of the movie biz; after “Reservoir Dogs” (1992) his “Pulp Fiction” (1994) won Palme d’Or at Cannes; “Pulp’s” cost: $8 million; gross so far: $57.6 million; brilliantly jumbles pre-MTV sensibility with filmic homages, and when did he figure out Amsterdam? In America, you know, we’ve got a bug up our butt about something and we just want a change....

But if the ’50s weren’t much fun to live through, they turn out to be a lot of fun to read about. Tainted fun, I-shouldn’t-be-enjoying-this fun, but fun all the same. Cars guzzled gas, soulless suburbs bloomed, “Ozzie and Harriet” reigned on TV and political correctness meant voting a straight Republican ticket. If the Dulles brothers felt like overthrowing the government of Guatemala to protect the interests of United Fruit, nobody said boo....

Why did you write this book? I wanted to explain why bulls––t has become the etiquette of choice in office life. How do you define b.s.? It’s telling people what you think they need to hear. It may involve finessing the truth or outright lying, but the purpose is always self-serving. And while I appreciate the role of some b.s. in keeping the corporate peace, it makes people feel beaten up, deceived— even dirty....

Antigovernment themes like Thompson’s played so wellin the recent elections thatthey crushed even conservative Democrats like Cooper, who is best known for opposing the Clinton health plan as too liberal. As a result, for the first time since Reconstruction, a majority of congressmen and senators from the old Confederacy are Republican. And because the most powerful members of the new majority hail from Dixie, the “Contract With America” is being expounded by voices with distinctively Southern accents: Newt Gingrich of Georgia; Phil Gramm, Dick Armey and Tom DeLay of Texas; Trent Lott and Thad Cochran of Mississippi....

Boulder, Colo., has a high tolerance for both New Age seekers and sports obsession, and Tizer’s group has quietly operated at the fringe for two decades with an eclectic stew of spiritualism and self-actualization. But when he recently formed the Divine Madness Ultra Club, and one runner won a prestigious race last summer, Tizer began offering public workshops. By attracting publicity as a running coach and recruiting new members more actively, he unwittingly drove former members out of a self-imposed silence....

Knoller, who faces manslaughter and second-degree murder charges, wept as her attorney told the jury that she “risked her life” in an attempt to save Whipple from the dog, a 150-pound male Presa Canario named Bane. At times, defense attorney Nedra Ruiz burst into tears herself, before falling to the floor in front of the jury in order to pantomime what she described as Knoller’s desperate attempts to pull the “berserk beast” off of Whipple....

Yes, Virtual Prozac–the only medication guaranteed to have no side effects and no direct effects either. Virtual Prozac is the paradigm shift in a bottle–only without the bottle! Virtual Prozac cannot be bought at health-food stores, pharmacies or by mail order. It is not available in pill, capsule, liquid or any other form. Virtual Prozac is the first antidepressant of the Information Age, the only one to harness the incredible healing power of the Placebo Effect....

Catania is a member of the “Austin 12,” an informal group of gay Republicans who advised the Bush 2000 campaign, serving as a sounding board on gay issues. In April of that year, the 12 traveled to Austin to meet with the then Governor Bush, who was eager to burnish his image as a “compassionate conservative.” He’d resisted meeting with the chief gay GOP group, the Log Cabin Republicans–they’d backed his presidential-primary rival John McCain–but agreed to sit down with a dozen handpicked gay supporters....

But inch by painful inch, old enemies on the Korean peninsula are edging toward conciliation. In the agreement reached last week, the North, the South and the United States will hold a “joint briefing” in a few weeks on beginning real peace negotiations; they will talk about talking. Immediately after that briefing, bilateral discussions between North Korea and the United States are supposed to resume on a number of subjects: opening liaison offices in Pyongyang and Washington, ending North Korean missile sales abroad and allowing officials from the U....